One of the central aspects of the false teacher’s arguments was
that Jesus and Christ were two different persons. They said that Jesus was just a normal human
and that the person of Christ was a spirit that indwelt him at his
baptism. Christ had come in the spirit
but not in the flesh. This is a
variation of the heresy known as docetism.
New Testament writers respond to this heresy in their writings. Take 1 John 4:1-3 for example:
By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit who confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God, and every spirit who doesn’t confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not of God, and this is the spirit of the Antichrist, of whom you have heard that it comes. Now it is in the world already.
This is one of the reasons why New Testament writers use the name “Jesus Christ” so
frequently. They are attempting to
establish that the name refers to one person and not two. It’s interesting when the New Testament
writers use the name “Jesus” by itself or the name “Christ” by itself, they use
it in a way that contradicted the false teachings. The phrase “blood of Christ” is used to show
that Christ was of the flesh and not spirit only (1Cor 10:16, Eph. 2:13, Heb.
9:14, 1Pet. 1:19).
Related Verses: Eph. 4:10
Related Verses: Eph. 4:10
